Soooo, for those doubters out there, there is real collusion and price fixing happening only now on a GLOBAL scale. Anyone with an ounce of sense can see it in almost all tech related areas. But here is a case where some big fish have been caught with their hands in the cookie jar, so to speak.
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2375730,00.asp
Quote:
The president of Taiwanese display maker HannStar was indicted Thursday for his participation in a global price fixing scheme for thin-film transistor liquid crystal display (TFT-LCD) panels.
The indictment was filed in San Francisco district court and charges Ding Hui Joe, also known as David Joe, with conspiracy to suppress and eliminate competition by fixing the prices of TFT-LCD panels. The scheme reportedly took place between Sept. 14, 2001 and Jan. 31, 2006, according to the Department of Justice. By 2006, the TFT-LCD panel market was valued at $70 billion.
The investigation has resulted in $890 million in criminal fines, and overall, 22 executives and eight companies have been charged in the DOJ's ongoing investigation into LCD price fixing.
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Read the article, it goes on to mention several other similar cases, heck even one where Nokia brought suits against several manufacturers.
What makes it even more vile is these companies are paying slave labor wages and horrid working conditions, no such think as a "fair wage" or even "living wages" in most every country where these devices are produced. So the profit made by off-shoring the jobs from other countries, even within places with demonstrably poor wages compared to other industrial countries, was not enough. These people had to band together to collude and artificially keep prices higher.
And this matters to ebook people like all of use because more and more tablet devices most of which will use LCD displays are going to really blow up in the market this year. Maybe now we know at least one of the artificial reason these devices are all the same price in what is claimed to be a free market. It also blow away any claims of supply and demand, not when supply can be manipulated by manufacturers along side of price fixing.
One also has to wonder if the price fixing is not retarding advances in LCD/TFT technology as well. Perhaps the financing issues and production issues Pixel Qi was rumored to be having along with getting device makers to commit to their displays has not also be a result of what is truly a non-trivial issue given the way LCD technology has become a part of everyday life for pretty much everyone in most countries.
Just thought it was interesting and especially given the introduction of more and more tablet style devices into the ereader market.